In the early 1900s, a group in Turkey called the Young Turks wanted to modernize and put life back into the dying Ottoman empire. They also wanted to keep Europe from taking Ottoman territory. Russia and Britain sent officers to Macedonia in June of 1908 to keep it under control, but the Young Turks fought back and demanded the restoration of the Turkish constitution. So on July 24, 1908, Sultan Abdul Hamid declared the restoration of the constitution in order to meet the main demand of the Young Turks. Then he called together a session of parliament to talk about the Young Turks’ further demands for reform.
The next year came with more disorder, so the leader of the the Ottoman army, Mustafa Kemal, made Sultan Abdul Hamid step down and made his brother the new sultan. The Young Turks did not have the full control of the Ottoman Empire until 1913. Mustafa Kemal became the first president of Turkey. During the years between 1908 and 1913, many different secret societies within the Serbian army were created, and in 1914, one of these societies, the Black Hand, came into the spotlight. The Black Hand was blamed for helping the young terrorists who killed the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in late June 1914. The killing of the archduke is said to be the event that began the chain of events that led to the beginning of World War I.
